Between the Poles

Energy sector vulnerabilities to climate change

Energy is essential for economic development.  The effects of climate change include Increasing temperatures, decreasing water availability, more intense storm events, and sea level rise.  These will affect the ability of the United States to exploit, produce,and distribute fossil fuels and generate and distribute electricity, as well as affecting the demand for energy.  The Department of Energy has released a study that assesses the impact of climate change on the energy sector.

Some of the events that have occurred in the last few years that motivated this effort include

• August 2012: Millstone Nuclear Power Station in Connecticut shut down one reactor because the temperature of the intake cooling water from the Long Island Sound was too high
• September 2011: High temperatures and high electricity demand tripped a transformer and transmission line near Yuma, Arizona, starting a chain of events that led to shutting down the San Onofre nuclear power plant with power lost to the entire San Diego County distribution system of 2.7 million power customers with outages as long as 12 hours
• July 2012: In one of the worst droughts in American history, companies that extract natural gas and oil via hydraulic fracturing faced higher water costs or were denied access to water for 6 weeks or more in several states, including Kansas, Texas, Pennsylvania, and North Dakota.
• Summer 2010: Below-normal precipitation and streamflows in the Columbia River basin resulted in insufficient hydropower generation to fulfill load obligations for the Bonneville Power Administration. BPA experienced a net loss of $164 million in fiscal year 2010, due to low water volumes.

Impacts of climate change

Thermoelectric power generation facilities are at risk from decreasing water availability and increasing air and water temperatures, which reduce the efficiency of cooling.

Increasing temperatures increase evaporative water losses and water use in upstream watersheds, decreasing water availability for hydropower. 

Cooling water availability could be limited by low flows, high water temperatures, or both.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory evaluated the potential water-related vulnerabilities of all coal-fired power plants in the United States and found that nearly 350 plant (60% of 580 plants) are located in areas subject to water stress (i.e., limited water supply and/or competing water demand from other sectors).

Increasing temperatures also reduce the efficiency of conventional thermal power plants.  For example,the power output of natural gas-fired combustion turbines is estimated to decrease by approximately 0.6 %–0.7% for a 1°C increase in air temperature. For combined cycle power plants, output can decrease by approximately 0.3%–0.5% for a 1°C increase in air temperature. For nuclear power plants, output losses are estimated to be approximately 0.5% for a 1°C increase in air temperature.

Energy infrastructure located along the coast is at risk from increasing intensity of storms and higher storm surge and flooding, which affects oil and gas production, refining, and distribution, as well as electricity generation and distribution.

Oil and gas production, such as shale gas and oil and oils sands, is vulnerable to decreasing water availability.

Renewable energy resources, particularly hydropower, bioenergy, and concentrating solar power can be affected by changing precipitation patterns, more frequent and more intense droughts, and increasing temperatures.

For example, PV panels become less effcient as temperature rises.  This is one of the reasons that Minnesota is a better location for solar PV power generation than locations in the South.

Electricity transmission and distribution systems operate less efficiently when air temperatures are higher, and they face risk of physical damage from more intense and frequent storm events and wildfires.

According to the IEA Approximately 7 % of power is lost in transmission and distribution.  Increasing temperature increaes these losses.  For example, a study of the California power grid projected that during the hot periods of August in 2100 a 5°C increase in air temperature could decrease transmission line capacity by 7%–8%.  The same study projects that a 5°C warming in 2100 could cause substation capacity to fall by 2%–4%.

Onshore oil and gas operations in Arctic Alaska are vulnerable to thawing permafrost, which may cause damage to existing infrastructure and restrict seasonal access.  On the other hand, offshore operations could benefit from a longer sea ice-free season.

Increasing temperatures will likely increase electricity demand for cooling and decrease fuel oil and natural gas demand for heating.

Interdependencies

There are interdependencies within the energy sector.  For example, oil and gas transmission systems depend on electric power for monitoring and management equipment as well as for pumping.  Ther are also interdependencies between the energy sector and other sectors. The energy, water, food/land nexus is the best known.  For example, in the U.S. half of water withdrawals go to conventional thermal power plants fo cooling.

Water needed for energy

• Energy resource extraction
• Fuel processing
• Thermal power plant cooling
• Carbon capture and storage

Water needed for land

• Agriculture
• Industrial municipal commercial and residential uses
• Natural ecosystems

Energy needed for land

• Resource extraction and conversion
• Agriculture
• Transportation
• Industrial municipal commercial and residential uses

Land needed for energy

• Energy resource extraction
• Energy infrastructure, including dams/reservoirs, mines/wells, power plants, solar and wind farms, power lines, pipelines, and refineries
• Bioenergy cropland
• CCS

Land needed for water

• Water capture and watershed
• Ground cover vegetation

There are also interdependencies between the energy sector and other sectors such as transportation and communications. The transportation sector requires energy for motive power, and the energy sector relies on transportation to provide the necessary coal, oil, and natural gas resources to operate. The communications sector requires electricity to operate, and the smarter grid is based on communication systems.

Water myths: unlimited water and who makes the decisions

In her introduction to the session she was chairing at the Canadian Water Network conference Margaret Catley-Carlson, who has been involved with water internationally for about 15 years, focused on some of the myths about water that need to be dispelled if we are going to come to grips with the water challenges facing the world community.

"The water industry" and water users

From Margaret's perspective it is important to realize that there is a very real disconnect between the powers that within societies are thought to have the power or responsibility for shaping the way that water is managed and the very real way that water is managed in many societies around the world.

She pointsout that the entities that talk, declaim, analyze, and write books about water and the environment really are in many ways not the managers of water.   Real water management decisions are made by millions of farmers every day in countries all around the world.   Some of them are big farmers and some are very small farmers.   Water management decisions are also made by hundreds of utilities, by energy producers and operators, by industries that use water such as mining, and by people who manage value chains.  What is presented in textbooks and in speeches is not the reality of water management.   The important water management decisions, the ones that have significant impact on water quality and quantity,  are made by the sectors of the economy that use water.   And far too often water users are not not involved in discussions about water.  Margaret recollected that she has been working in the water sector for close to 15 years and has been to more conferences and meetings than she cares to remember and at too many of these people who are in the water sector talk about how people who are outside of the water sector should be behaving rather than actually listening to water users.  From Margaret's perspective, the water users are the people we have to listen to and understand if we want to know how the future of water is going to be written.

The water nexus

Margaret's persective is that the management of water suffers completely by being caught up in the rhetoric of the past century, that water is plentiful and unlimited.  This is especially prevalent in Canada with the result that it is very difficult to undertake any meaningful dialog, let alone change, because of the myth that there is an unlimited amount of water in Canada.  As an example, water has been fully allocated in southern Alberta.  Increasing energy production there will require either diverting water from agriculture, meaning less beef much of which is exported, or by diverting water from north-flowing rivers as has been done with significant environmental impacts in Russia.

She also points out that limited water resources mean that we can no longer look at drinking water, irrigation, and using water for cooling at electric power plants as completely independent of one another.  About 5 years ago a number of people began to realize that talking about water and agriculture or water and energy provided a limited view because the outlook for the next hundred years is going to be written by something more complicated.   The nexus is often represented by a triangle with water in one corner, energy in another corner and agriculture in the third.  Municipalities and utilities would be included in the water corner.   Just looking at the bilateral  flow of water between these sectors is not as useful as considering the complex interplay between all three.  For example, if you start to use a lot more water in the energy sector or the energy sector starts to return water to the system in a condition by which it cannot be used by agriculture or other industries,  the whole system is affected. It is no longer the case as it was when we were three billion people and the impact of the activities of one sector on water could be analyzed by itself.  Now we've got to look at the impact in the context of the water nexus.  For example, what happens in Mongolia when a major coal industry goes into an area which depends on agriculture but is already water-stressed ?  This was in reference to images shown at the conference by Carl Ganter of Circle of Blue of a Mongolian farmer standing in a field desiccated by the lowering of the water table by a new coal mine.

Margaret believes that we live in the water nexus which is where competing demands for water are what is going to write the book about the future of water. The good thing about this is that there are possible synergies. For example, cleaned city water can have important agricultural applications. Water and energy can link together in some very important synergies.  For example, in Western Australia solar power generation is being linked to desalination.

But she also feels that there are also some troubling linkages.  Some countries decided to reduce their dependence on Middle Eastern oil and to switch to bio-fuels, even making them statutory.  Some countries mandated that in the future all transport had to use X % of bio-fuels.  The nexus impact of that was to move water away from the food function and crops such as corn or oil palm toward the energy function, with the result that the prices of those commodities went sky high resulting in food riots in some countries. 

What this means is that we can no longer talk about a single sector and how it uses water.  We have to diiscuss water usage in the context of competing uses in the water nexus.

The interdependence of food, water and energy in a warming world

The Aqueduct project is an effort to measure and map water related risks being developed by the World Resources Institute with the support of an alliance founded by General Electric and Goldman Sachs.

Recently Aqueduct asked its hydrological modeling partner ISciences and experts from The Coca-Cola Company to develop and analyze a set of maps that illustrate the complex relationships between water, food, and energy worldwide.

Agriculture and power generation account for the majority of water withdrawals in most developed countries.  In the United States 34% of water withdrawn is used for agriculture and about 48% for power generation.

The Food and Agriculture Organization recently estimated that feeding a global population of 9 billion people in 2050 will require a 70% increase in total food production.  The World Energy Council has estimated that energy supplies must double by 2050 to meet the energy demand of all households worldwide.

The Coca Cola Company, the World Resources Institute and ISciences L.L.C. overlaid the locations of existing thermal, nuclear, and hydro power plants worldwide on baseline water stress maps for the year 2000.  They also created maps showing potential changes in water stress under a variety of climate change scenarios developed by the IPCC through 2025.

Water stress and power generation in 2025

The maps show that 17% of global power plant design capacity on the ground today is located in areas of “medium-high”, “high”, or “extremely high” baseline water stress. By 2025, 29% of today’s global power plant design capacity will see water stress conditions grow “significantly worse”, “extremely worse”, or “exceptionally worse”.

Water stress and food production in 2025

The World Resources Institute and its partners have also created maps overlaying the locations of irrigated crops worldwide onto the same baseline and projected water stress maps in 2025.  About 18.5% of total global cultivated crops are irrigated.  The maps show that around the year 2000, 40% of global irrigated crops were located in areas of “medium-high”, “high”, or “extremely high” water stress. By 2025, 73% of global irrigated crops could see water stress conditions grow “significantly worse”, “extremely worse”, or “exceptionally worse”.

FAO recommends energy-smart food through climate-smart agriculture

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has projected that by 2050 a 70 % increase in food production will be necessary to feed a world population of nine billion.  The FAO's first ever global assessment of the world's land concludes that 25% of the earth's is badly degraded and that a sustainable intensification of agricultural producitivity is required to meet the growing demand. In the past few decades the use of fossil fuels by agriculture has made a significant contribution to increasing agricultural producitivity through farm mechanization, higher fertilizer production and improved food processing and transportation.

The food sector is now responsible for 30 percent of the world’s total energy consumption.  Food prices tend to be linked with global energy prices. The food sector also contributes over 20 percent of total GHG emissions. The challenge we now face is to develop global food production systems that emit fewer GHG emissions, have a secure energy supply and are not dependent on fluctuating energy prices while at the same time providing food security.

According to the FAO one-third of the food we produce is not consumed and a significant share of total energy inputs are included in these losses. In low-GDP countries most food losses occur during harvest and storage. In high-GDP countries, food waste occurs mainly during the final stages of retail, preparation, cooking and consumption.

To meet increasing food demand in a sustainable way, a recent FAO paper Energy-smart Food for People and Climate recommends a major long-term program based on three foundations,

• energy access,
• energy efficiency
• energy substitution through the greater deployment of renewable energy systems

It recommends that local and national governments adopt policies that combine food and energy security to help meet sustainable development objectives while contributing to ‘Climate-Smart Agriculture’.